Challenge

A duo of Zentia mineral ceiling tiles has been used on a building forming part of West Dumbartonshire Council’s biggest-ever capital investment programme.

They were specified for the new state-of-the-art £13 million New Dumbarton Care Home designed by Cooper Cromar Architects for the council in conjunction with hub West Scotland, its development partner.

At New Dumbarton Care Home, the systems have been used throughout the 23,000m2 brick and block building on the site of the former Crosslet House.

They comprise a total of more than 1,400m2 of Zentia’s 600 x 600 Biobloc Plain board tiles with Prelude 24mm XL2 exposed grid to the back of house and staff areas and all wc/changing areas as well as Zentia’s 600 x 600 Optima Vector tiles with Prelude 24mm XL2 semi exposed grid to the high-level main entrance area.

The new care home comprises 84 residential bedrooms grouped in domestically scaled seven-bedroom clusters. These are arranged in house groups to provide 56 ground-floor and 28 first-floor bedrooms. It also incorporates steel-framed day care facilities for 50 people, along with associated access, parking and communal/ courtyard landscaping.

Solutions

The Zentia systems were installed by specialist sub-contractor Brian Hendry Interiors, a member of Zentia’s Pinnacle Partner network of sustainably-certified installers, for main contractor Morgan Sindall.

Project architect Kevin Fitzpatrick said: “The design was led in conjunction with the client, West Dumbartonshire Council, who set out from the beginning a desire for ‘less clinical’, more ‘domestic’ and ‘dementia friendly’, in particular for the residential portion – the houses, bedrooms and common rooms.

“We had to coordinate the architecture and interior design to maintain high levels of dementia-friendly design and meet the stringent statutory Building Control requirements in terms of fire safety and escape. And the client’s requirements for high levels of acoustic performance, controlling the sound between rooms, was beyond what was expected by Building Control.”

Brian Hendry added: “I have worked with Zentia over the past 18 years and found them to offer an excellent product, whilst at the same time offering good value for money with a very professional and reliable service. We receive a lot of support through our suppliers, however the Zentia technical team are on call for anything more complex.”

Prelude 24 is no longer available for order and has now been replaced by Gridline 24.